


building nothing, laying bricks

by possessedradios



Series: Treppenwitz [2]
Category: Wolf 359 (Radio)
Genre: (Like...implied/mentioned), Gen, Internalized Homophobia, Warren is so bad at being human but I guess he's kinda trying. Maybe. A little.
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-18
Updated: 2018-02-18
Packaged: 2019-03-20 20:35:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13725483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/possessedradios/pseuds/possessedradios
Summary: Sure, this girl who so aggressively tried to befriend Warren (and somehow managed to succeed) might have told him that she's gay, but then again, she just as aggressively kept inviting him to her house, so it's really no wonder he's a little confused.





	building nothing, laying bricks

**Author's Note:**

> Hey look, I made it a series because I am Very Much In Love with Jamie (who made her first appearance in That Cutter/Warren Recruitment Fic Thing), oops. I didn't mean to get so invested, but now there's AUs inside of this AU and (shrug emoji).
> 
> Marked as complete for now, but I might write other short snippets/snapshots/interactions between Warren and Jamie while they were still visiting high school together, and if I do, I'll add them here as chapters.
> 
> Title is taken from "Caring Is Creepy" by The Shins.

She takes him home and he meets her mother who comes out of the bedroom at four in the afternoon, yawning, and she kisses Jamie on the cheek and says, “Have I mentioned lately that I hate night shifts” and “Three people tried to die, I was pretty pissed at the end” and “Hi, Warren, nice to meet you, Jamie told us a lot about you” and then Jamie guides him into her room and says, “My mom’s a nurse, not a reverse serial killer or something” and she sits down on her bed, on a batch of apparently freshly washed clothes, uncaring, and he says  


“I’m gay, I think.” 

Jamie opens the drawer of her nightstand and starts shoving stuff around. “You think?” She doesn’t look up. 

Warren opens his mouth and at the same time forgets what he was going to say. He swallows and tastes something bitter and thinks about her mother kissing her on the cheek and wants to leave and wonders what she’d do if he tried to kiss her properly. 

(Then he realizes he really doesn’t want that. (He almost takes a step forward to do it anyway, but that’s when she speaks again.))

“You gonna keep standing around? It’s making me nervous.” 

He slowly sits down on the floor, because her bed looks too small for two people, and because he’s probably gay, whether he likes it or not. 

Jamie has finally found what she was looking for and tries the lighter a few times until it clicks on. She lights a cigarette and turns on her stomach. Part of Warren thinks she’s very pretty like this, blinking at him through blueish grey cigarette smoke. 

“I figured,” she eventually says. 

“What?” 

“That you’re gay. You’ve got this look in your eyes whenever a girl tries a move on you. Or even just wants to talk to you, actually.” 

“What look?” 

She shrugs. “It’s like, a mixture of disgust and something like ‘how dare you even think of approaching me’.” 

“I thought I look at everyone like that,” he says, overly aware of the fact that this isn’t a joke; that he means it. Jamie snorts anyway. 

“That’s a pretty fucked up thing to say, don’t you think?” 

“No,” he says slowly, “I don’t like people. They are crude and stupid and useless and _easy_.”  

She shoots him a look he can’t read and says, “We’ve known each other for like two weeks, Warren.” He doesn’t answer because he doesn’t get how this is connected to the conversation they were just having. 

A minute passes and then another. Jamie finishes her cigarette and keeps looking at him. Warren keeps looking back, mostly because he doesn’t know what else to do. 

“So,” she eventually says with a sigh. “You _think_ you’re gay.” 

“I dated a girl. A while ago. For four months or so.” 

“Uh-huh,” she says. “I married Peter Howards when I was in kindergarten, so, you know.” 

He doesn’t and almost tells her, he almost says, no, I don’t know, what the fuck are you saying, but then he gets angry instead, because he doesn’t get her and because she makes him feel insecure and because he’s just really good at getting angry. 

So: He gets angry, and he raises his voice without even really realizing, and asks, “What the fuck is your deal?” 

“Keep your voice down or fuck off,” she replies, very calmly, and he snaps his mouth shut and grits his teeth. 

He won’t apologize. 

He doesn’t apologize. 

(She doesn’t seem to expect him to.) 

“What I was trying to say,” she says after a few seconds, “is that dating a girl doesn’t mean you’re not gay. Did you _like_ dating her?”

He– realizes he doesn’t know. He thinks about it for a moment, thinks about holding hands and sitting in the last row in the cinema because that’s what couples do, thinks about her expectant glances, thinks about awkward kisses in front of the door of her house (and, no, he didn’t and still doesn’t get why the whole kissing thing had seemed so important to her, but then again, he didn’t really find it important while jerking Trevor off in the locker room either, and Trevor certainly had, so maybe that’s got less to do with gender), he thinks about the excited voice of his mom when he had told her in passing–

He shrugs. 

“Huh,” she says, and then frowns. “Why’d you even tell me that? I mean, I appreciate it! It’s a sign of trust, right? But–”

(That’s not what it was supposed to be, no.)

“–why’d you feel like telling me that? You don’t seem to want to talk about it.”

“I just–” Warren’s quiet for a second, and then says, almost abruptly, “This isn’t a date, right?”

Jamie stares at him and then starts laughing, loud and genuine, burying her head in the bedsheets so her hair falls over the edge of the bed and brushes against the floor. She tries to stop a few times, but every time she lifts her head to look at him, she starts giggling again.

 _“Fuuuck,”_ she manages eventually, a little breathless. “God, Warren, please. No. No! No. I mean, no offense, but _no_. Never. Never ever. I told you I am gay! I’m like … super gay. I’m a lesbian. Every now and then, someone scribbles ‘dyke’ on my locker, and I scribble ‘yes!’ next to it. Why in the world should this be a date?”

“You told your mother about me!” he says, almost accusing, almost defensive. It’s the latter that bothers him more. “You kept asking me to come home with you the whole week!”

She finally gets serious and frowns at him. “Yeah. I told her I made a new friend. And I wanted you to come here with me so we could watch shitty movies together. Because, you know, we’re _friends_. Don’t you ever take your friends home with you?”

Warren doesn’t answer, and after a moment, she blinks.

“Oh.”

“I told you I don’t like people,” he says, and it comes out too defensive once again, so he adds, without giving her a chance to answer, “Can I have a cigarette?”

“… Sure,” Jamie says.

(Her bed, it turns out, is well big enough for two people, and they manage to pick a movie they both like, only for Jamie to fall asleep halfway through. Warren stares at her for what feels like ages, and eventually he sleeps as well, pressed against the wall, as far away from her as possible.)

**Author's Note:**

> I'm @possessed-radios on tumblr, my podcast sideblog is @shortwaveattentionspan, and if you want to read some Specific Thing, feel free to let me know, I love writing but I suck at Knowing What To Write!
> 
> Also, please take a minute to marvel at [kalgalen's](http://kalgalen.tumblr.com) wonderful piece of [fanart](http://kalgalen.tumblr.com/post/170842001923/i-dont-have-any-headcanons-but-i-am-wondering-what) for this.


End file.
